Help:BPG Reference and Bibliography Protocols

Conservation Specialties

Conservation Specialties Analysis and Imaging Preventive Care Education and Professional Development Workplace Practices About Conservation Lexicon

• Book and Paper

Group

• Book and Paper Group

Section

• Wiki Editor Resources

This page provides guidance for adding or updating bibliographies and citations in the BPG Wiki. The BPG Wiki is looking for volunteers to help with this effort, as many sections of the wiki lack sources published after the late 1980s. Resources should be suitable for an audience of conservation scholars and conservators and can be in either physical and digital format.

Volunteers are encouraged to become wiki editors, or they can email their bibliographic citations to the BPG Wiki Coordinators at bookandpapergroup.wiki@gmail.com, and we will do the rest.

Compiler: Sandrine Blais, Denise Stockman
Contributors: Katherine Kelly, Alexander Bero, Laura McCann, Michelle C. Smith, please add your name here

Copyright 2026. The AIC Wiki is a publication of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC). It is published as a convenience for the members of AIC. Publication does not endorse nor recommend any treatments, methods, or techniques described herein. Information on researching with and citing the wiki can be found on the Reference and Bibliography Protocols page.

Cite this page:

American Institute for Conservation (AIC). "Help:BPG Reference and Bibliography Protocols." AIC Wiki. February 2, 2026. https://www.conservation-wiki.com/wiki/Help:BPG_Reference_and_Bibliography_Protocols.

When to cite references

We encourage you to cite your work appropriately using the instructions found on this page below.

We also encourage you to develop short, annotated bibliographies that guide your readers to the most useful resources on your topic. Include a header that describes your selection criteria (e.g. exhaustive, online-only, most useful). Bibliographies can be broken down into topical sections, and references within each section should be alphabetical by author's last name.

Terminology

In order of appearance on a page:

Inline citations acknowledge the source of information in the text. The source of information can either be a quote or paraphrased from the source material.

See example of a quote in Book and Paper in Historic Houses § Introduction

See example of a paraphrased citation in Book and Paper in Historic Houses § First Aid

The references list is made automatically when the "cite" button is used and directly correlates to information present in the text. Those references will be in the order in which they appear in the text. It can either be a full or short reference. A full citation will follow the guidelines outlined below, while a short citation will only include the author's last name, publication date and page(s) number(s). Both options are appropriate, but should be consistent on any single page.

See example of a reference list using short citations in Asian Papers § References

See example of a reference list using full citations in Books and Ppaer in Historic Houses § References

The bibliography is the list of works cited on the page, with full citations. Those citations can also be annotated with a brief description (2-3 sentences) of the source with comments about its relevance to the topic.

See example of a bibliography in Asian Papers § Bibliography

The further reading is an additional list of sources relevant to the particular topic but not cited directly on the page.

See example of a further reading section in Asian Papers § Further reading

Examples of annotated bibliographies on the Wiki

• Scrapbooks
• Mold
• East Asian Scrolls

How to format references

All references should be formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed., Author-Date system. Some wiki-specific guidelines:

• An entry in a bibliography should include all of the standard elements of an entry, not simply a title and link.
• Use the author's full first and last name, instead of initials.
• If the link is a website, note the date the website was last updated or accessed.
• If the book or article is available online, the entry in the reference list or bibliography should include a hyperlink to the source. Permalinks or DOIs are preferred.
  • Links to the full text are preferred, but links to articles that are behind a paywall are also accepted.
  • The link should be expressed as the title of the article or book.

Reference examples

AIC Wiki page

See also: Paint Layer

Book

Adam, Edina and Michelle Sullivan. 2024. Drawing on blue: European drawings on blue paper, 1400s–1700s. Getty Publications. Los Angeles.

Chapter of edited book

Bower, Peter. 2002. "Blues and Browns and Drabs: The Evolution of Colored Papers" in The Broad Spectrum, Studies in the Materials, Techniques and Conservation of Color on Paper. Archetype Publications. London. pp. 42-48.

Journal article

Brückle, Irene. 1993. "The Historical Manufacture of Blue-Coloured Paper". The Paper Conservator Vol. 17, No. 1. p. 20-31. DOI: 10.1080/03094227.1993.9638402.

Webpage

CAMEO (Conservation and Art Materials Encyclopedia Online). 2025. "Wheat Starch". Last edited July 2, 2025. Accessed December 30, 2025.

Blog

Udina, Rita. 2025. "Onion skin paper: History, Uses, Composition and Conservation." Rita Udina: Paper & Book Conservation Blog. Accessed December 30, 2025.

YouTube video

Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art. 2010. "Safe Handling Practice for Chinese Handscrolls". Youtube. 6:44. Posted November 4, 2010. Accessed January 9, 2026.

Thesis or dissertation

Turgeon, Brunet, Emily. 2014. "Removing Polymerized Linseed Oil and Aged Olive Oil Stains from Paper Using Three Prepared Solutions; Image Result for Shout Triple Acting Stain Remover." Master's thesis. Queen's University.

Adding references using the source code or visual editor

Description	Visual editor	Source editing	Output
Add to reference list	Click "Cite", then "Basic"	This paragraph has a reference. <ref>AuthorLastname PublicationDate, page(s).</ref>	This paragraph has a reference.
How to repeat the same reference	Click "Cite", then "Re-use"	Let's say we want to refer to three different sources in this paragraph. This section will be have a citation from author A,<ref name=":0">Reference for author A.</ref> then from author B,<ref>Reference for author B.</ref> then A again,<ref name=":0" /> then author C,<ref name=":1">Reference for author C</ref> then C again.<ref name=":1" />	Let's say we want to refer to three different sources in this paragraph. This section will be have a citation from author A, then from author B, then A again, then author C, then C again.
Reference list	Reference list will automatically be added at the bottom of the page when references are created.	<references> </references>	See below

Linking to PDFs

When linking to a pdf that is housed on the wiki, the user must link directly to the pdf file, rather than to an information page about the file. The code below will automatically add the icon when you link directly to a pdf.

good:

Horton, Richard 2000. “Glossary of Terms Relating to Photo Albums.” in Conservation of Scrapbooks and Albums: Postprints of the Book and Paper Group/Photographic Materials Group Joint Session at the 27th Annual Meeting of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. 21-28. AIC, Washington, DC.

bad:

Horton, Richard 2000. “Glossary of Terms Relating to Photo Albums.” in Conservation of Scrapbooks and Albums: Postprints of the Book and Paper Group/Photographic Materials Group Joint Session at the 27th Annual Meeting of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. 21-28. AIC, Washington, DC.

If the "bad" version occurs, it might be necessary to edit the source code and change the word from "file" to "media" inside the brackets to fix the issue. See the source code from this paragraph as an example.

Citing the BPG Wiki

Researching with the BPG Wiki

Our goal is for all BPG Wiki pages to include robust citations and comprehensive bibliographies, providing researchers with a trove of significant texts and resources on a given topic. Many of our wiki pages gather and summarize already published knowledge. Where this is the case, we advise researchers to use those published sources as references when writing for publication, rather than citing the wiki.

In some cases, it may however be necessary or preferable to cite a wiki page. This could be because the content exists only on the wiki, such as the presentations from the AIC Annual Meeting BPG Tips Session, or the summary write-up of the 2018 pre-meeting symposium “The Current Use of Leather in Book Conservation” found on the Use of Leather in Book Conservation page. Or you may wish to cite the BPG Wiki in order to demonstrate current practices and popular thinking among conservators who use this resource.

Wiki pages are frequently revised. Keep this in mind if you decide to quote from the wiki.

How to cite the BPG Wiki

With the above caveats in mind, we encourage you to cite BPG Wiki pages in your papers, blog posts, and presentations. Please use the following citation format based on the Chicago Manual of Style for citing a page on a website. Citations are provided on each page inside a colored box at the top or bottom of the page.

Don't cite the wiki on the wiki

When referring to BPG Wiki pages on the wiki itself, always use an embedded link to that page (for example, Parchment Bookbinding); do not use a citation.

For more information

AIC-CC User Guidelines for References and Bibliographies

AIC guidelines for references and bibliographies

Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed., Author-Date system

Chicago manual of style, which are the citation guidelines followed in the AIC Wiki

Wikipedia Guidelines on citations

This article discusses the reference style of Wikipedia, not the AIC wiki, but it is a useful place to learn about conventions in online citation.